After the Abitibi-Consolidated paper mill, one of the main employers of the borough, shut down in 2004, Saguenay's elected officials decided to invest in La Baie's tourism industry by building and operating a port of call for cruise ships in 2008.

While Chicoutimi and Jonquière, the two boroughs that constitute the main urban core of Saguenay, are located close to each other, La Baie is at a moderate distance from the city centre.

This has created some unique issues for the borough — for example, while a full-power television or radio station in Saguenay can serve the entire city from a single transmitter without difficulty, La Baie is distant enough from the city's urban core that some low-power broadcasters, such as CKAJ-FM, have had to add separate transmitters to rebroadcast their signals in La Baie.

[4] Colonization was impossible during this period since the Hudson's Bay Company held exclusive rights to natural resources in the region since 1821,[5] a monopoly which would only expire in 1842.

[37] In addition to the maritime traffic in Alcan's Port-Alfred port facilities, Bagotville's quay became Canada Steamship Lines' water terminal in the Saguenay region from 1930 to 1938.

[54] From July 18 to 21, 1996, a major depression resulted in 260 mm of rain falling within a fifty-hour period on the Laurentian Wildlife Reserve and the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region.

The railways were heavily damaged, which paralyzed the city's economy, cut off drinking water supplies, and isolated areas east of the Mars River.

Some of La Baie's elected officials expressed opposition to the imminent municipal mergers in the Saguenay region by joining Laterrière in refusing to sit on transition committees.

[61] Having learnt from its difficult and costly experience while trying to save the Gaspésia paper mill, the Quebec government withdrew from plans to reopen the plant in 2005.

Two years after the mergers, the Quebec government allowed merged municipalities to hold public consultations starting on May 16, 2004, to organize demerger referendums to be held on June 20, 2004.

Originally, these groups had planned to develop Port-Alfred's Powell Quay and the Grande-Anse Maritime Terminal and set up a shuttle service.

However, it was eventually Bagotville's Algélias-Lepage Quay that was selected for the installation of cruise ship facilities because of the shorter disembarkation distance and increased safety for the boat passengers.

[65] After the Office of Public Hearings on the Environment (French: Bureau d'audiences publiques sur l'environnement) held consultations, work began in August 2007[66] despite a small opposition movement to the project in 2006.

[69] Like most cities alongside the Saguenay River and east of St-Jean Lake, La Baie has a continental climate that is milder than the surrounding Laurentian Plateau.

[70] Even though it is located on the same latitude as warmer European cities such as Paris or Vienna, La Baie has long, cold winters and short, mild summers.

The La Baie Borough is the fourth largest urban centre in Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean (after Chicoutimi, Jonquière, and Alma) with 7% of the region's total population.

[82] The La Baie Borough Council oversees urban planning, traffic flows, snow removal, the road system, firefighting, socioeconomic, community, and cultural development, parks, and recreation around the Ha!

[83] La Baie, which contains 20% of the riding's voters, has lost political clout to the more populous Chicoutimi Borough that shares the same Member of Parliament.

Since the closure of Port-Alfred's Abitibi-Consolidated mill in 2004, the borough's main economic drivers have been the Rio Tinto Alcan aluminum smelter in Grande-Baie (684 employees) and the Bagotville military base (1,200 soldiers and 250 civilians).

Bay, the plateaus that extend toward Laterrière and Chicoutimi and overhang Grande-Baie are fertile enough to produce small quantities of cereals and oleaginous plants.

The borough contains twenty-one dairy farms that are members of the Fédération des producteurs de lait du Québec.

The 2004 closure of the Abitibi-Consolidated paper mill led to the direct or indirect loss of 780 jobs, totalling 30 million dollars in lost wages.

Outside of large industry, La Baie's logging sector includes small- and medium-sized businesses involved in forest management and wood transportation.

[98] In 2002, aluminum production at the Rio Tinto Alcan plant in Grande-Baie combined with metal fabrication and machining generated 1,147 jobs in the borough.

The borough's provincial institutions include a Centre local d'emplois, a Carrefour jeunesse emploi, and a Société de l'assurance automobile du Québec branch.

The port was redeveloped to be able to receive bauxite and other materials needed for aluminum production and for shipping the Port-Alfred Pulp and Paper Corporation's newsprint.

[107] They mainly originate from bauxite-exporting countries like Brazil, Ghana, and Guinea[105] and carry bauxite, petroleum coke, sodium hydroxide, fuel oil, and fluorite.

It originally imported hydrocarbons but it progressively began transporting forest products, general merchandise, and liquid and dry bulk.

[120] According to authors Luc Noppen and Lucie K. Morisset, "There are still some rare examples, although not always in good shape, on the rural roads located on the town of La Baie's territory.

Permanent outposts of the Catholic Church in Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean were limited to a few missions near Saint-Jean Lake and at the trading post in Chicoutimi until about 1840 when the first colonists arrived in Ha!